Worn ball joints

[Tom Mandera <tsm1@domain.elided>]

Back to "spring maintenance".. I just scanned through old photos of my
Scout to try and see if it's always had as much "V" to the front tires
as it currently does.  It could just be 33" tires making the stock "V"
(camber) look larger.. but it sure seems excessive to me.  It's been
puzzling me for a while now, but I couldn't determine if it was normal
and always that way and I just now noticed it.. or if it's something I
should deal with.

I lack a dial indicator for accurately checking the amount of slop in
the balljoints.. they've always *seemed* OK via the lever-arm-under-tire
method.. 

I'll be poking in the shop manual tonight to see how much camber I
*should* have.. and try to determine if that's what I *do* have.

I'm also going to find a straight edge that's shorter than my level and
see how true the axle housing itself is.. the axle shafts slipped in n'
out easy enough when I changed out the U-joints.. but that doesn't
necessarily mean I didn't bend it.

Observations that have me looking at this closer:

Tires are wearing on the outside edges up front.  Toe-in is actually
just a little bit of toe-out at the moment.  When I had excessive
toe-out, the tires wore on the inside.  Now the top of the tire appears
to be more "out" than the bottom which is "in".

I also noticed during cornering at speed, on right hand turns (which
made the truck lean to the driver's side) I could feel a rumble under my
feet.  I'm not sure if this is just *extra* vibrations from the weight
transfer and I'm feeling it through a weak body mount.. or the tire is
rolling farther to the edge of the tread and hitting "square" lugs, or
if it's extra weight on some worn components that are then transferring
the vibration to the cabin.  In any case, there's some poking around to
be done...

A Scouter's work is never done...

-Tom